


The Beasts of Suburbia

by the_wordbutler



Category: Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe, HSAU, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 14:39:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/pseuds/the_wordbutler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“The suburbs,” John Munch comments, leaning back in his chair at the faculty lunch table. “Secret hotbed of villainy and deceit. Everyone looks so nice and innocent until you open the doors and find out all their secrets.”</i>
</p><p>After a grisly murder in their suburban neighborhood, high-school teacher Bobby Goren and and his wife, Detective Alex Eames - along with Cyrus Lupo, now a homicide detective, and several old faces from one of Manhattan Prep's most memorable graduating classes - have to make sense of the life they lead, the world they live in, and the beasts that lurk just beyond their own front yard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beasts of Suburbia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Perpetual Motion (perpetfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetfic/gifts).



> Written as part of the Manhattan Prep universe, which was created by perpetual motion. The story which started it all can be found [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/586303/chapters/1053738) Additionally, this story is a follow-up to ["Finding the Not-Place"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/623193) . . . at least in the sense that it is the continued adventures of Mr. Goren and Officer Eames in the Manhattan Prep universe.
> 
> This story contains a vague and non-graphic description of a crime scene. It also discusses child abuse, although again, not graphically. 
> 
> There is a few small cameos from a characters from entirely different universes. Apparently when I wrote this almost five years ago, I thought myself hilarious.

Bobby can’t find what he’s looking for.

He opens and closes cabinets almost at random, and maybe it is truly at random because nothing is in the place he assumes it should be. Canned goods, cups, bowls, plates, cereal, pots, pans, but – 

“Coffee mug,” he mutters to himself, and reaches up to open another cabinet. “Coffee mugs are – “

“Still in the box,” and it’s strange that Bobby hears the door close before he really registers Alex’s voice. It used to be that the moment he heard her, or sensed that she might be near, every synapse zoomed in and focused on her. It’s not as sharp as it used to be, and Bobby can’t decide if he’s just getting used to her closeness or if he’s seriously dulled from lack of coffee. The move requires that he get up even earlier than he used to drive to school. He won’t complain – he loves the school almost as much as he loves the new house, with an actual yard and _room_ , not like the first apartment after they’d left campus proper – but if he’s going to be expected to hold any sort of decent conversation after six p.m., he needs coffee. 

The house is still half boxes, and he moves to the corner that’s stacked with them, opening one flap and then the other. “We should put them away,” he says as he paws through crumpled newspaper and packing peanuts. “There’s something I was reading, about the energy in homes that are in chaos. It’s bad for everyone living in the house. It messes with your mind, and your sense of order, and – “

“Your OCD?” Alex slides in next to him and pulls a mug out from the box as though it takes no effort. A few packing peanuts hit the floor, and she smiles at him. Time, Bobby thinks as he watches her, has been kind, because she’s not as wrinkled or as gray as he – though she’s younger, and she’ll always be a few years younger, never mind the fact that she’s never as stressed as he is, even being back in the police force proper – and even if there are lines around her eyes, they’re mostly laugh lines. “This weekend, we’ll finish unpacking.”

“You said that last weekend,” he points out, grinning at her. “And the weekend before that. And the weekend before – “

“Don’t remind me,” she tells him, digging out a mug for herself. She’s still got her gun on her belt – habits die hard and she brings it home every evening even if they’ve never had reason to use it – but coffee comes first. “If you weren’t dragging us out for every parents’ night – “

“Not every parents’ night. Just the important ones. It was the first debate meet of the season. He wanted us there.”

“He said he didn’t.”

“Has he ever told the truth?”

That brings out a wry smile from Alex. “He has your creative interpretation of truth versus lies.”

“Mine?” Bobby pours her coffee. “No, not mine.”

Alex looks ready to argue, the same old lines – who really has the clever gene versus the stubborn gene versus the brilliant gene – when they hear it, the sudden, hollow sound of two very clear pops from somewhere in the vicinity. They almost sound like firecrackers, but Bobby sees the way Alex’s entire body tightens and knows that firecrackers are the one thing they’re not. She grabs for her cell phone as she starts back through the house and Bobby follows on her heels. 

“This is Detective Eames, Major Case,” she barks as they head down the porch steps. It’s just getting dark, the edges of night creeping into the sky, but the streetlights are not yet on. There’s a dog barking somewhere and Bobby’s acutely aware of how exposed they are, Alex in street clothes with a leather jacket and he in his pants and shirt from work. They must look like any other suburban couple, though, and scanning the street, they’re the only people out. Lights burn in about half the houses. Commuters are just getting home from work, sitting down to dinner, minding their own business. “There’ve been shots fired in my neighborhood. No, I’m sure they’re shots, I – let me give you the address, I need a car down here to go door-to-door.”

Bobby lets her rattle off the house number while he walks to the sidewalk and scans up and down the street, just in case. They’ve barely lived in the house for three weeks, but with work and Johnny’s awkward freshman year at Manhattan Prep (where he loves and hates being crazy Mr. Goren’s son, something Bobby gets nothing but flack about from his colleagues), they’ve barely had time to unpack the things they use, let alone meet the neighbors. He considers himself observant, though, and knows most the cars – a couple hybrids, a couple SUVs, a classic Mercedes on the corner – and where they’re parked by the time Alex gets home. 

The streetlights flash on.

“They’re sending a squad car up to do a canvas,” Alex says, joining him. She sends him a sideways glance. “I’m not going to wait. I’m going three houses down. Go inside and – “

“No,” he replies, and starts down the sidewalk. “We can cover more ground. If something’s happened – “

“You’re not armed, Bobby,” she reminds him, and there’s an edge to her voice that says she won’t allow him to throw himself in danger if any is present.

He shoots her a smile over his shoulder. “I was in the army. If I have to, I can… Figure something out.”

She rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue.

The neighbors immediately next door are a couple about their age, as it turns out, and didn’t notice anything over the sound of their television. The next house down features a woman in her sixties who berates him for interrupting her dinner. Since three houses is the rule, he knocks on the third door twice before a man in boxer shorts and nothing else answers. 

Nothing interesting to report.

He glances down the street and sees Alex crossing it, jogging in front of a late-model Ford. He waves to the stranger, a face he doesn’t know (but a car he does; he thinks it belongs a block over) and hammers on a door across the street.

It’s a young couple with a four-year-old who presses her face against the screen. They ask if the kids at the end of the block have been shooting off firecrackers, but that’s all. 

Alex is two houses away when he wrenches open the storm door and picks up the knocker of the next door, only to take a step back when he realizes that the door’s open. It swings in a few inches and stops, stuck on the rug. There are no lights on in the front windows but when he climbs down the front steps and looks up, there’s light streaming onto the street from two upstairs windows.

“Eames!” he calls, an old habit of his own, and Alex is pocketing her badge as she jogs over from disrupting another dinner. He points at the door. “It – it wasn’t locked, it wasn’t even really closed,” he explains quickly. There’s adrenaline and fear in his veins and he recognizes it, all muddling together. He drums his fingers on his pant leg. “The lights are on upstairs but not down, and look, the car.”

Alex looks. “What car?”

“That’s the car. The family car. The husband leaves at the same time I do in the morning. We wave to each other sometimes. They’re home, but they don’t have any lights on inside. Everything’s lit up like Christmas trees, but – “

She follows his logic. “Stay here,” she commands, and unsnaps the restraint on her sidearm. “You need to be here when the car arrives, to direct – “

“I’m not letting you go in alone.”

“I’m a cop, Bobby.” The perennial reminder.

“Not when you leave work.” She rolls her eyes. “And besides,” he adds, “you wouldn’t go into what might be a scene if Barek wasn’t with you. You’re not stupid. You’re a good cop.”

Carolyn Barek, Alex’s partner, would kill Alex for considering such a thing, never mind doing it. 

Alex regards him coolly for another ten seconds and then just heads for the door. Bobby knows that she knows he’ll follow, and he does, digging in his pocket for his handkerchief so if he does have to touch something, he won’t leave prints. He’s sat as the mock trial coach since Jack left and learned more about criminal law than any amount of being a “cop’s wife” (funny to the men Alex has worked with, if not funny to anyone else) could teach him. 

The house is eerily similar in layout to theirs and, more telling, eerily quiet and neat. Everything’s arranged carefully and he follows Alex through the living room and into the kitchen, stopping only to consult the bookshelf for a half-second. “And you criticize me,” he murmurs to himself, and Alex’s dismissive snort tells him she’s heard it. The first floor is a giant O, the stairs to the second story in the middle of it, and they walk right through a dining room and an annex to the front foyer before ending up right where they were in the first place: in front of the stairs.

“Nothing weird,” Alex comments without raising her voice past a hiss, and then nods to the stairs.

It’s another three-bedroom house, and the second story is split into two “sides”, the master bedroom and bath in one direction and the two other rooms, including a shared bathroom, on the other. Alex glances up and down the hall but it seems every light is on, and there’s nothing noticeable or strange about the hallway proper. She heads towards the master bedroom, hand hovering over her gun, and Bobby ducks down the other end of the hall. One room is clearly made for a child far younger than their Johnny, probably seven or eight, and he nearly bumps his head on a dangling model spaceship as he steps through the threshold. There’s no one in the room, no signs of a child, not even a backpack or a half-played board game. 

How many children weren’t home by 6:30 in the evening?

“Bobby!” Alex calls through, and that’s all he needs to break from his mental narration and head towards the master bedroom. He pushes open the half-closed door and smells before he sees; the heavy scent of iron is in the air, moist like humidity. 

He would have rather just smelled it.

The bedroom is a scene of chaos and disarray, and Alex kicks open the bathroom door and leaves him the chance to stare at the carnage: two bodies in the bed, horribly mutilated from head to thigh. It’s safe to assume that one of the bodies was once the husband Bobby nods to – nodded to – every day on his way to work, and the other is – was – the wife, but it’s impossible to tell for certain. Blood pools on the duvet, on the floor, and seeps into the carpet, but it’s all fresh, not more than a few hours old.

The sound of sirens howls in the distance. 

“Bobby,” Alex says gently, and puts her hand on his arm. He blinks, looks at her, and it’s like realizing there’s more in the room than carnage for the first time. His stomach gnaws at nothing, and he’s suddenly glad he hasn’t eaten. 

“I – “ He shakes his head to clear it. “I’ve seen – I’ve seen things,” he stumbles, “in Korea, in Germany, but this – this is the worst. I…” He runs a hand over his face, through his hair, tries to piece what he wants to say together. “Why would anyone – “

“People are sick,” she says, and sounds absolutely disgusted.

Bobby shakes his head. “No, I mean – “ He looks back at the mutilation, the complete destruction in the sheets. “Why would you bother with a gun, after that? It’s… Too much.”

Alex looks at him for a moment and then drops her eyes again. He knows that she’s in the same place he is: all questions, no answers.

 

==

 

“So, lemme get this straight.” The detective has a Jersey accent, which annoys Alex from the get-go, and he leans against the squad car with a nonchalant air, like everything that’s happened is clearly nothing to write home about. “You hear shots, you phone it in, and then you bring your boyfriend – “

“Husband,” she snaps irritably.

“Fine, husband, whatever. You bring him into the crime scene? Did you fail out of the academy the first couple times?”

Their quiet street is swarming with cops left, right, and upside down, and the crime scene barricade has been moved down the block twice since the uniformed officers arrived. Alex watches a CSU responder stumble out of the front door and vomit into the bushes, and she drops her eyes. They’ve only been there for forty-five minutes, maybe an hour, but she’s seen more detectives, officers, and hardened scene responders lose their lunches in that span of time than she has in years.

Bobby’s standing awkwardly near another squad car, rattling off the story to a uniform who is probably just old enough to be carrying a badge.

“Look,” she says, again, because she’s said it twice but this detective – Brass from the responding Manhattan Precinct 27 whose partner has yet to show and who has yet to believe a word out of her mouth – seems to have temporary amnesia, “we heard shots and I wasn’t going to sit in my living room and wait for a car to arrive. Bobby came with me. He’s army-trained.”

“He teaches high school.”

“Who would you rather have at your back when investigating a potentially dangerous scene? A soldier with a Purple Heart, or…him?”

She gestures randomly to a man who’s lumbering up, rumpled suit and unkempt hair. He looks tired, like he’s just rolled out of bed, and he’s stopped twice by uniforms who exchange words with him. She only notices his badge when he flashes it for stop number three, and Brass follows her eyes to Mr. Rumpled. “Took you long enough,” he chides.

Mr. Rumpled waves a hand. “One night in a week I get to go home, open a beer, and watch the game, and you’re – “ He stops and his eyes fall on Alex.

Alex meets them and sucks in a breath through her nose. “Mr. Lupo,” she says, and there’s something between a fondness and hatred of irony she hears in her own voice.

“Officer Eames?” Cyrus Lupo looks just like he did when he was eighteen and stumbling out of Manhattan Prep, but with a little more meat on his bones and a little less time spent with an iron. In the real world, there’s no Anita Van Buren handing out demerits to her favorite and least-favorite students, and she can tell he notices the way she looks at him because he shifts his weight. He’s no more comfortable under a scrutinizing eye now, though he’s armed with a badge that sits awkwardly on his belt like he’s not used to it being there.

Brass glances at him. “You know her?”

“Yeah,” he says, and tries on a little smile. “When I went to high school. She was our school security officer.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “And now a member of the Major Case Squad?”

Alex wonders if she could punch him and get away with it. “I paid my dues.”

“I’d say,” and Brass mutters it so quietly that she’s certain Cyrus doesn’t hear from the way he steps in. “What are you doing here?” he asks, surveying the scene. The coroner’s unloading, CSU teams are bustling in and out, and there’s yet another uniform holding back a nosy neighborhood rubber-necker. “I thought we pulled the case.”

“We did,” Brass says. “The detective and Mr. Eames decided to play neighborhood watch.”

She rolls her eyes. “We heard shots,” she explains to Cyrus, who actually looks engaged by the comment, rather than nonplussed and annoyed. “I called for a car and we went door to door. We didn’t expect to find the DOAs.”

“Yeah?” Cyrus rocks back on his heels, energized. “So, what was up with the scene?”

“Nothing.” She shrugs her shoulders. “Everything was in place, there were no signs of forced entry or anything suspicious until we got into the master bedroom, and then – “

“Okay, enough.” Brass shoots her a look that could freeze fire. “Major Case didn’t pull this. You’re a civilian until my boss tells me otherwise. If I were you, I’d take Watson over there home, put on a cup of coffee, lace it with some whiskey, and go to bed. You can read about the investigation in the newspaper.”

Alex opens her mouth to argue, ready to list a number of very good reasons why she should absolutely not be sent home and dismissed like another of the neighborhood’s nosy housewives when Bobby touches her arm. She nearly leaps out of her shoes, surprised that he’s been released by the uniform, and he says, “They’re telling us to go home,” without noticing Brass (no loss) or Cyrus. She nods and starts to reply, but Cyrus beats her to the punch.

“Hey, Mr. Goren.”

Bobby’s head snaps up and he regards Cyrus for a moment, almost like he doesn’t recognize him, and then grins, a sort of quirky half-smile that lifts the corners of his lips. “A cop,” he says, and sounds amused even to Alex’s ear. “I think Munch’s pool had you for a – a meter maid.”

Cyrus makes a face. “That bad?”

“You were always a fan of the rules, but the small rules. I don’t think he thought – any of us thought – you’d want to deal with all the lines in the sand about being an officer. But good for you. Detective. You should be proud. Your parents, too.”

Alex remembers most parents, but realizes before she sees Cyrus’s face fall that she never met his. Ed Green, Mike Cutter, Connie Rubirosa, Casey Novak, Alex Cabot, she can recall faces and expressions of their parents from when she shook their hands, but not Cyrus’s. It’s blank.

“Yeah, kinda,” he says quickly, and rubs the back of his neck. “My brother, he was really proud of me. Said I did better than him.” It’s half a smile, and Alex is grateful, for once, that Bobby doesn’t press the verb tense. He would in any other situation, but it’s late and they’ve both been stretched close enough to breaking for one evening. “Hey, but listen. Lemme walk you over to your door. Across the street, right?” 

“How’d you guess?” Alex deadpans. She knows he recognizes the SUV. It’s the updated model of what she’s always driven, and it’s plastered with a Manhattan Prep sticker. He grins at her and they cross the empty road, trying to ignore the way their neighbors – strangers – look at them. She’d wanted to eventually meet them, have a little gathering and actually fit in with these – since in the last neighborhood, the working detective wife and the school teacher husband who rushed home to drive the son to soccer practice had been the gossip of the homeowner’s association – but she’s fairly sure first impressions have been made already. 

Cyrus is as good as his word, leads them all the way to the door, and then stands with his hands in his pockets as Bobby turns the knob. They never locked it, and the lights are still all bright through the windows that still don’t have drapes. “Listen,” he says awkwardly, like he’s not sure how to address witnesses who are also former teachers, “if anything comes up and we need sort of an inside track, can I call you guys? I mean, not just to have you nose around with the neighbors, but you were paying attention. There might be something that comes up that seems kinda unimportant but means a lot to us.”

Alex grins at him. “I do know how this works,” she teases, and his expression falters. “You can call us. We’ll be here.”

“And actually,” Bobby turns around on the stoop and looks down at Cyrus, “can you tell us when you find the son?” Alex looks at him, eyebrows raised, and he shrugs a little. “I mean, little kid, he’s probably with his grandparents or something, but I mean, after all that… I just want to know if he’s okay. We’ve got a boy,” and that’s clearly for Cyrus, “he’s fourteen, and I’d like to think that, if it were us, our neighbors might want to know what happened to him, too.”

“The son?” Cyrus frowns and digs into his pocket to pull out his notepad. “My captain gave me all the information in the car. They didn’t have children.”

Alex frowns. “None?” she asks.

“Nope. Leslie and Parker Huntington, no kids.”

“There’s a room,” Bobby informs him, and his fingers are dancing against his pants. “With toys, and space memorabilia, and all the trappings of a little kid. They have a son. They’ve got to have a son.”

“Not on paper,” and Cyrus flips his notebook shut, “but I’ll check it out.”

“Thank you,” Alex says, and watches him walk away before she crosses into the house after Bobby. He’s dumping out the coffee pot and putting on a fresh one by the time she gets there, but she doesn’t mind taking her mug, sticking it in the microwave, and setting it on high. “Bobby, are you – “

“They have a son, Alex,” and he says her name the same way he always does, breathless in the back of his throat, like it’s only to be saved for the most important occasions. She watches him dig in the fridge for the canister of coffee. “I’ve seen rooms before, kids’ rooms. I remember having my room, and… You don’t decorate a room like that if you don’t have a child. Even if you have a grandson or a nephew, it’s not – it’s not lived in like that. That was a child’s home.”

“Even if the child was adopted or from a former marriage, there’d be record of it,” she points out, leaning against the countertop. She’s exhausted and realizes only when she bumps it that her gun is still on her hip. She takes it out, tugs out the magazine, and lays it on top of a box. It’ll go in the gun locker later. She’s too drained to consider it now, while her coffee is warming. “Maybe they lost a baby and it’s how they cope with the loss. I remember a cold case Barek worked before she was my partner. The parents lost a child – abducted and killed – when he was four and still bought him Christmas presents every year. His room was full of high-tech gadgets because he should have been sixteen.”

“Grief does that,” Bobby admits, and flicks the switch on the coffee point. He’s clearly distracted from the little circle he makes around the kitchen, opening a few cabinets until he finds a bag of tortilla chips. There’s no time to cook, not now, and Alex realizes as soon as she sees them that she hasn’t eaten all day. “But Eames – “ Still and always Eames, and Alex sometimes wonders how he’d managed to stumble through her entire name, middle and all, at the wedding. “ – this was different. This was… There weren’t any immediate signs of a kid, but there were rumpled sheets, well-used toys. It was somewhere a child had been. Recently. Like when Johnny leaves after spending a weekend with us instead of at school.”

Alex’s stomach twists at the mention of Johnny, and she staves it off by reaching for a few chips. “I’ll talk to Captain Ross,” she says finally, not glancing at Bobby. “Maybe he can put me on the case, or at least look into it. I can’t promise anything. The 27’s notorious for not playing well with One-P-P.”

Bobby snorts, and she makes it through two more chips before his hand is on her lower back, stroking her skin through her shirt, and she gives into exhaustion to lean against him. Bobby’s still strange with affection, full of little touches (but never in public) and attention that isn’t necessarily typical, but she’s run through alleys all day and now been lightly accused of evidence tampering (or worse) by a balding know-it-all from a local precinct, and Bobby’s comfortable. He leans down and puts his nose against the top of her head, and that makes her smile almost as much as the mental picture of Cyrus Lupo – who had, if her memory served, put fifty dollars against Whacko Mr. Goren ending up with Hot Officer Eames – witnessing them together. 

“Are you going to tell Johnny in the morning?” she asks after a long moment, caught up in smelling coffee, chips, and Bobby.

“I don’t know,” he admits, and his voice is soft so close to her ear. “I say, let him have a little while of thinking that this might still be an okay place. There’s enough going on. We don’t need to tell him that a neighbor he doesn’t know…”

He lets the comment float in the air. 

“He’ll find out,” she murmurs.

“Then he does,” and he slides an arm around her, half a hug, before he goes to pour himself a cup of coffee.

 

==

 

“I don’t care if they’re Mary and Joseph,” Jim Brass spits, crossing his arms. “They showed up at a crime scene after calling the cops and had a half-assed story about neighborhood protection.”

“I know them,” and Cyrus feels drained just from this conversation, because it’s been going on for hours, and he hasn’t slept. He hasn’t slept, he hasn’t eaten, he hasn’t had anything but coffee, and he’s had to ignore three text messages from Ed asking if he’s ever coming back to finish their boozing-and-better because there’s been too much to do. The crime scene is still being picked over even as he slouches in a chair in Captain Schumacher’s office. “They’re good people. They wouldn’t do that to a neighbor.”

“They taught you your nouns and verbs,” Brass informs him. “Not exactly – “

“Enough,” and Schumacher puts up a hand. She’s edging towards her fifties and fits the profile of a gracefully aging woman, but she’s the one person in the world who can shut Brass up (and she has no idea how grateful Cyrus is for that talent). “This is getting us nowhere, and I’ve had to field calls from the Chief of Detectives, One Police Plaza, and even the mayor, never mind SVU and the DA. This story hit the papers hard, and everyone’s buzzing that it has something to do with Mrs. Huntington’s ties to the mayor’s office. We’re already inches away from having to toss it to the Major Case Squad, and I don’t want to go there.”

Brass snorts. “Their dirty cop won’t make it – “

“Dirty cop? Senior detective Alex Eames has more decorations than Macy’s the day after Thanksgiving. No. You’re going to play nice with the other kids this time.” She stands and the motion reminds Cyrus of Anita Van Buren, lording over anyone who steps into her office. Even Brass looks small. “Captain Danny Ross of MCS is coming over here to discuss the situation. You two have a date with the medical examiner.” She crosses the space and opens the door. “I need a moment with Detective Lupo,” she tells Brass, no room for argument. “He’ll be with you in a moment.”

Brass sends him a dirty look – Cyrus doesn’t blame him, not entirely, since Brass had been happily cruising along with a partner of several years before he’d had to switch out for Cyrus, the awkward newbie just transferred into homicide – and walks out. 

Schumacher shuts the door and leans against it. “You’ll vouch for them?” she asks.

Cyrus blinks. “What?”

“Captain Ross isn’t just making a courtesy call, but Jim doesn’t need to know that.” She watches him, and Cyrus can feel the way she dissects every shift in his position and every wrinkle in his suit coat. “Leslie Huntington was the mayor’s personal assistant for ten years before she got married, and Major Case is chomping at the bit to get this. Add Detective Eames’s perfect record and the fact that she tripped over the scene, and they’re ready to go to the mattresses for it. I want to know if you’ll vouch for her, and her husband.”

He shrugs his shoulders for lack of any better expression. This is the fifth or six time in the last year that he’s stumbled upon someone from back in high school – be it Ed, or Mike Cutter, or seeing Casey Novak at a Yankees game – and he always struggles to explain why Manhattan Prep’s such a touchstone. It’s the first place he felt happy, secure, comfortable, free, and he wants to spell that out for Schumacher but knows he can’t say any of that without sounding as whacky as Old Mr. Munch. Finally, he just says, “Sure.”

“That’s it?”

“What can I say? Mr. Goren was my English teacher. He’s a good guy. A little weird, but nothing that sends up red flags. And Detective Eames – she was the school security officer. Everybody was terrified of ending up in a study room with her because she always got you to come clean. They’re not the kind of people who would go kill their neighbors over anything, unless maybe someone read one of Mr. Goren’s first editions with Cheetos fingers.”

He realizes as soon as he says it that the last comment was not and will never be funny, but Schumacher doesn’t seem to care. She watches him for one last second and then nods, stepping away from the door. “Send Jim in. I’m going to reassign him temporarily so you can work with Eames and her partner. Ross’ll be happy.”

“Okay,” and as much as Cyrus wants to mean it, he feels a little jittery when he steps out of the office and lets Jim stomp back in. Working with Major Case isn’t something that happens that often to the average detective. Usually, they work like the FBI: they walk in, sweep up case files and evidence, and disappear into the ether. It can make or break a career, actually interacting side-by-side with them. His mind is full of the possibilities as he heads to the coroner’s office. 

He tries to ignore the little niggling voice in the back of his mind that points out how he hasn’t seen Officer – erm, Detective – Eames in years, and that he’s not sure he’s quite ready for a Major Case homicide. He’s barely been handling the handful of precinct homicides since he’s been reassigned. 

He blames Brass, partially.

“Look what the cat dragged in.” Doctor Cavanaugh, the medical examiner, is only a few years older than Cyrus and painfully pretty, but she knows it. She’s teased him more than once about his so-called crush on her, and he would argue except for the part where she was right. “I was ready to give up on you entirely.”

“Couldn’t keep you waiting,” he replies with a half grin. The bodies are covered with sheets, which is for the better. The scene had nearly caused him to lose his dinner, and he knows that autopsies on mutilated bodies just end up looking worse instead of better. The sheets have a few bloody patches. It’s hard to believe there was anything left to get on them. “What’s the verdict?”

“They both bled to death, no surprise.” She picks up her notes. “Mr. Huntington had deep gashes in almost all of the available skin on his chest and torso, and never mind some creative alterations further south. His face was almost entirely caved in, but not from whatever caused the other mutilation. I think he was pistol whipped.”

“And shot?” Cyrus frowns. “Overkill much?”

“That’s the thing. He wasn’t shot.” The doctor steps over to the next metal autopsy table. “Mrs. Huntington was. Twice, in the head. Her mutilation was mostly superficial. He went Jack the Ripper on her chest – “ He wrinkles his nose. “ – but otherwise, they almost look like hesitation marks. No sign of sexual assault, though she probably had some monkey business with the husband before she went to bed. I’m having the lab check for a DNA match, just in case.” She puts down the chart and looks at the prone form of Mrs. Huntington. “There were some ligature marks on her wrists and feet. If she hadn’t had part of her face blown off, I could assume there was some duct tape involved.”

“You think she was restrained?”

“I think she could have been forced to watch him die.” She shrugs. “But what do I know? I’m just the M.E.”

There’s something tongue-in-cheek about her comment, and he almost smiles. “Thanks,” he says, and heads for the doors. He pushes through the first set, leaving the doctor to wheel away the gurneys, and then remembers Bobby Goren’s comment about the Huntingtons potentially having a child. He stops and pokes his head back in. “Hey, Doc.”

She glances up. 

“Is there any sign that Mrs. Huntington ever had a child?”

For a moment, Cavanaugh just looks at him, and then she smirks slightly. “DA subpoenaed medical records that fast?” she asks.

“What?” 

“Leslie Huntington had severe cysts on her ovaries and uterus when she was a teenager. She had to have a full hysterectomy before she hit twenty. She couldn’t have children.”

Cyrus frowns. 

Suddenly, he’s not sure he believes the innocence of a room filled with toys and no child anymore.

“Thanks,” he says, and rushes out of the room. He doesn’t get cell signal until he steps out into the sun, but as soon as he does, he’s dialing.

“This is Lupo at the two-seven,” he informs the operator who picks up. “I need a CSU team sent back to the Huntington house to do a sweep on the kid’s room. Prints, fibers, hair, all of it. The sooner, the better.”

 

==

 

“Nice,” Barek says as Cyrus Lupo walks into the Major Case Squad’s main squad room. She’s leaning back in her chair, finishing a coffee, and it takes Alex a moment to realize what she’s looking at and then follow her eyes. Cyrus looks like a kid being led into the principal’s office, big eyes and clear fright, and Barek glances back at Alex. “You sure he’s not too green?”

Cyrus is clearly as green as they come, but Alex’s always liked him. He’s earnest and lives by what he believes, even if it completely doesn’t mesh with the rest of the world. “He’s a good kid,” she tells Barek, putting down her pen. Ross has risen from his desk and is waving them over. “He’ll do his best.”

“I believe that,” and Barek stands with her, “but I’ve seen new detectives work a case like this and not handle it.”

“So have I.” In the smallest way, Alex regrets thinking it, let alone saying it, because it suggests that she doesn’t trust Cyrus’s abilities as a detective. She does; Schumacher brought him into her department, and Gina Schumacher is not a captain who takes these things lightly. 

By the time they get to the office, Cyrus is already there, straight-backed in a chair meant for slouching and with the case file on his knees.

“Detective Lupo, this is Detective Carolyn Barek. I think you know Detective Eames.” Ross is all business, and Alex knows how intimidating that can be. Cyrus doesn’t get out of his chair even when Barek raises an eyebrow and offers a hand. “Detective Lupo was just about to brief us on what the two-seven’s uncovered. It’s more than we expected.”

“More?” Barek asks, and leans against the door. Alex sits in a chair, if only to calm what must be Cyrus’s incredibly jittery nerves. 

“More,” Cyrus puts in, and flips open the file. He hands it to Alex, not Barek, and then sits forward, elbows on his thighs and fingers against his chin. Alex remembers her first time in the same office, being interviewed after she’d run a few busts with the school gang squad and rubbing some of the big-name players out of school hallways. She’d listened to Ross rattle off statistics and the important of vice detectives, and even though she’d been older than Cyrus is now – married with a small child, years beyond the green new detective with the twitchy sensibilities – she’d been scared out of her mind. 

The room is quiet while Cyrus collects his thoughts.

“Detective?” Ross finally asks.

“The house had a kid’s room,” he finally says, and Alex flips through the pages. There’s a hard bolus of fear in her stomach, her gut instinct coming out to play. “Like, all decked out with kid stuff. I had a look at the photos. Space ships, legos, puzzles… I mean, if I was a kid? I’d want that room. I’d probably, like, pick up two or three paper routes to have a room like that. But the Huntingtons didn’t have any kids. Mrs. Huntington couldn’t get pregnant, there’s no records of adoptions in either of their names. Most I could find was that they fostered a kid for a couple weeks a whole seven years ago, but he ran off. CPS declared him AWOL and he’s been in the missing kids database, but no hits.”

Barek raises her head and really looks at Cyrus. “Somebody’s gotta go back through that house,” she decides.

“Already have CSU over there,” he reports. “They’re gonna do a sweep of the house for prints and DNA. I mean, we’ve got fingerprints from school safety days and CPS for thousands of kids in the city and beyond, so I figure, if the kid exists, we’ll find something out about him. If not, maybe there’s something in the house that explains why they’ve got a room full of kid stuff but no kid.”

Ross nods and leans back in his chair. “We sure it’s not a nephew or a cousin we didn’t know about?”

“The Huntingtons were both only children,” Alex reports, handing the file over to Barek. It’s halfway bare, the quiet story of two people in a nice neighborhood. It never ceases to amaze her, not all the way, of how entire lives can be reduced to a few sheets of paper in a folder. Parker and Leslie, two years apart in age, married nine years, with parents in Florida and extended family scattered across the United States. It’s harder to ignore how detached the system is when she knows there’s still crime scene tape around the maple trees across the street. When she’d left that morning, she found that neighbors had put flowers on the sidewalk. “And it’s unlikely that someone in their family would just lose a son or nephew and not come forward to know where he is. I mean, if Johnny disappeared from my sister’s place, even if she wasn’t dead, I’d be the first one beating down One-P-P’s door.”

Ross nods and looks at the three of them, though his eyes rest longest on Alex. He’s tried twice already to dissuade her involvement in the case. It’s personal, he claims, it’s too close to home, and even though she’s here and involved now, his gaze never quite leaves her face.

“Alright,” he says, and looks away. “Barek, take Detective Lupo here back to the neighborhood and get to know everyone on the block.” 

Alex blinks. “Sir – “

“No,” he retorts. “The last thing you need is to go door to door and harass your neighbors. I want you to sit down with the mayor and find out more about his personal assistant. If anyone knew Mrs. Huntington, it’d be him.”

 

==

 

“The suburbs,” John Munch comments, leaning back in his chair at the faculty lunch table. “Secret hotbed of villainy and deceit. Everyone looks so nice and innocent until you open the doors and find out all their secrets.”

“Ignore him.” Odafin Tutuola clearly is as he squirts ketchup onto his French fries. “He’s just jealous we’re still livin’ in the same dorm room we’ve been in since we hooked up.”

“I am not jealous,” Much insists. “I wouldn’t want to live in that white-picket-fence hellhole. That’s where all the most heinous acts are committed. Suburbia.”

Fin has a sharp retort and the two of them start arguing, but Bobby’s mind wanders away from the conversation. He’s made it through half the day, an accomplishment given everything he saw the night before, but now is seriously considering going home for the rest of it. He’s sent a few text messages back and forth with Alex, but there’s nothing new to report; Cyrus Lupo is working with Major Case, and, according to her latest message, Captain Ross has sent Alex on a menial task to keep everything from feeling too close for comfort. Bobby knows it frustrates her, but it comforts Bobby. He’s seen enough psychos make it personal and come after her. One even spent quality time sending her threatening (and often sexually-charged) letters before he’d been collared.

It’s not that Bobby wants to be the “big man” and protect her. Alex can take care of herself, and there is very little he can do to stop real tragedy if it takes place during her working hours. It’s simply self-preservation. They’re all safer with Alex safe. They’re all in a better place when Alex is safe.

“It’s insane, though,” points out Serena Southerlyn, glancing in his direction. Serena is a Manhattan Prep “lifer,” funny if only because everyone, from Bobby to Anita and Ben to Jack, assumed that she would head for the hills the minute the graduation ceremony ended. Instead, she’s replaced the now-retired Ben Stone as the science teacher and actually has quite a rapport with the students.

Even if Bobby’s heard legendary stories about her ability to stick her foot in her mouth.

“You move to a safe, quiet little neighborhood to get way from the city and that’s where your neighbors get killed,” she continues, pushing her salad around her plate. “It sort of breaks the reason why anyone moves out of the city in the first place.”

“People move out of the city because they’re afraid of ghosts,” Munch decides, shaking his head. “There’s nothing scary about the city.”

“Everywhere’s as scary as everywhere else,” Bobby replies, and pokes at his own lunch. “No place is inherently more dangerous than the other. That’s the problem with the suburbs. People start to assume that – like you said – everyone’s there to be safe, so it is safe. It’s not necessarily any better than the city. If you’re aware of your surroundings, and your community, the depths of Harlem is just as safe as Carnegie Hill.”

“Then why did you move?” Deakins asks. He looks amused, Bobby realizes, but of course he does; he lives just as far from school with his wife and boys. “The yard or the commute?”

Bobby snorts. “You didn’t know our last homeowner’s association.”

“Which is why I’ll never move,” Munch declares. “Crazy people telling me how long my flag can be.”

“Like your flag’s long at all,” Fin mutters, and Munch flicks dressing off his fork at him. 

Bobby almost smiles while the others laugh and glances up to look across the cafeteria. The kids at Manhattan Prep are still kinds at Manhattan Prep, a sea of sweaters and collared shirts, and he recognizes almost every face in the crowd. Johnny, who looks and talks and acts like an Eames except for his height, is eating with friends and laughing. For a moment, Bobby feels guilty. They’d had to win him over, convince him that moving to a new neighborhood the summer that he would be leaving his friends to go to Manhattan Prep (on scholarship, which he hated in theory from the first time it’d come up in conversation) was really a good idea. He’d finally settled with the decision when school had started, another upheaval. He’s never dealt with change well, and Bobby’s afraid he’ll use the news of what happened across the street, even if he wasn’t there, as leverage against the Big Bad New Neighborhood.

He watches Johnny smile and wants to go back to his classroom and avoid the evitable even longer.

“You tell the baby?” Deakins asks, and Bobby lifts his head. “Johnny,” he elaborates. “Did you tell him?”

“No, not yet.” Bobby shrugs. “He’s not – there’s enough other stuff going on. He doesn’t need to know about what’s happening a half-hour away from him. It’s just another case for Eames and just another day for me. That’s it.”

“That’s it?” Serena makes a face. “Someone died in your neighborhood. And according to the papers – “

“We’ll tell him. Just not yet. Not now.”

Deakins is still watching Bobby, and come to think of it, Munch and Fin are too. Johnny’s jokingly the First Child of Manhattan Prep, the first child to be born to anyone on the teaching staff during their tenure – most had either come to the school with children or, like Munch and Fin, refused to ever reproduce – and Bobby knows that everyone is just a little protective of him. He’s a good boy, a smart kid, but he’s never quite adjusted to having been born with an automatic array of faux aunts and uncles who look out for him as much as his parents do. Even now, Bobby knows that he, at fourteen, would throw a fit knowing that Deakins called him “the baby.” None of them do it on purpose, but he’s always the baby, like Kennie Briscoe was in his high school days. 

“You know who’s on the case?” Bobby finally says, to change the subject. “Cyrus Lupo.”

Munch chokes on his water and holds up a hand so no one talks before he has a chance. “ _Lupo_?” he parrots, incredulous. “He’s a cop?”

“A detective. Manhattan homicide, and he hasn’t changed a bit.”

Fin smirks. “You owe me fifty bucks,” he informs Munch.

“I do not owe you anything. Clearly, this is a conspiracy. There is no way that Cyrus Lupo is a cop.”

“Just ‘cause you bet he’d end up being an usher on Broadway don’t make it any less true, John.” 

“How did he even make it past the entrance exam? He wouldn’t know procedure and order if it came up and bit him in the – “

Munch and Fin launch back into an argument and Bobby ignores it, putting his chin in a hand and watching the cafeteria. It’s full of kids, and they really are _kids_ , kids who don’t expect things to go awry in their lives.

Bobby’s almost a little envious.

He can’t remember the last time he felt that way about his life, as happy as he is with it.

 

==

 

“When Eames told me they were moving further from the city,” Barek comments as they make their way down the street, “I expected some place in Jersey where the commute’s a pain but the mortgage’s cheap. I swear, Bobby must have cash hidden under the mattress somewhere.”

Cyrus snorts and watches his breath curl in the air. It’s getting chilly, that cool fall air, and he wishes he’d brought a scarf, but he didn’t. A block-wide canvas shouldn’t take this long, but with the weather and all the nosy neighbors desperate to know what’s happened, he’s stood shivering on more front stoops in the last two hours than he has in most of his career. When she’s talking to him, he almost likes Carolyn Barek, and when she’s not talking to him, she’s mumbling to herself. Either way, it’s an odd partnership.

He almost misses Brass. Almost.

“Wouldn’t surprise me. Mr. Goren was always a little weird.” The second-to-last house on the street features an old car and crabgrass growing up through cracks in the front walk, both of which Cyrus glances at and then dismisses. “Him and Eames? My old roommate said once that he caught them making out in Goren’s room and we all figured he was yanking our chains.”

“Was he?” 

“They’re married now, so I’m startin’ to think Ed’s not a total liar.” He grins a little. “I sent him a text, told him what’s going on, and he just wants details about Goren and Eames.”

Barek snorts. “High school drama never ends.” She pauses a beat, standing in the middle of the walk. “You still talk to people from high school?”

The question’s almost suspicious. He sticks his hands in his pockets. “A couple. That weird?”

“Usually, most people can’t wait to get out of that place.” She surges past him and takes the front steps in twos. “I mean, me? I was out so fast I think I made my principal’s head spin.”

“I didn’t mind it,” he admits, following her up. “Everybody was kinda cool.”

“Private school. My dad worked carpentry. I was lucky having new shoes.”

Cyrus wants to tell her that he hadn’t wanted to go to private school, that he would have rather been with his family or at least his brother, but then she’s picking up the door knocker and letting it fall. It’s one of those heavy brass ones that looks like a lion’s head, and he’s distracted enough by it that he doesn’t realize someone has stuck their head through the drapes until he sees the drapes whisper shut. He nudges Barek, who scowls. “NYPD!” she announces, and pulls her badge off her coat to hold it in front of the peep hole. “We want to talk to you about the Huntingtons!”

“Go away!” The voice is feeble and elderly. “I already talked to officers last night! I’ve had enough! I want to stay out of it!”

“Ma’am – “ Barek begins, but Cyrus gently nudges her out of the way.

“Ma’am,” he calls through the door, “my name’s Cyrus. I know you probably already told the officers everything you knew, but we haven’t talked to them. The Gorens, a couple doors down, they’re friends of mine. If we could have a few minutes, I promise, we’re just going to ask a couple questions and get out of your hair.”

Barek’s dark look rivals the depths of space for its endless blackness, but then there’s a click and the door slides open. The woman inside is at least sixty and wears a housecoat and slippers that make her look tiny and frail. Worse, she’s armed with a rolling pin.

“Mr. Goren brought in my groceries for me last week,” she informs them. “He’s a good man. They’ve got a boy, too. I saw him on his bike this summer. I don’t see him anymore.”

Cyrus realizes after a moment that she’s not actually informing them of anything, and he clears his throat. “I think he goes to private school.”

“Can’t trust those public schools anymore. Was a day, public schools were the best places for your kids. All of them were good. These days, you can’t find a good public school teacher.” She looks at Barek for a moment and then back to Cyrus. “She’s your partner?”

“Actually,” Barek answers before he can take the reins, “I’m Alex Eames’s partner. Detective Barek.”

“Detective Barek. If you have a first name, you can come in. I worked in the prosecutor’s office for a few years, a long time ago. All those detectives and all of them never giving me their first names because I was a woman and a stenographer at that. Cyrus, you can come in. I’ll put a kettle on.”

Cyrus steps through the threshold and slips off his shoes, which only makes Barek roll her eyes as she follows through. The house is smaller than several others on the block and immaculate. It reminds him of childhood holidays at his grandmother’s house, where everything was neat and tidy and just a little older than reality, with old-fashioned floral patterns and knick-knacks everywhere. The television has rabbit-ear antennas, and there’s a record player in the corner with actual albums sitting near it.

“You have a nice home, Miss – “

“Lewin, but you can call me Nora.” There’s a few sounds in the kitchen and then Nora comes back through with a tin of shortbread cookies. Her eyes dwell on Barek again and she asks, “And you are – “

“Carolyn,” and it sounds to Cyrus like every fiber in Barek’s voice is forcing those three syllables out.

“Very nice to meet you, Carolyn.” Nora is clearly chiding her without so many words. “Sit down. As soon as the tea’s ready, we can have a proper conversation.”

Cyrus takes a cushion on the couch and Barek follows suit, even if, as soon as their hostess is out of the room, she’s leaning over to hiss, “We’re not here for tea and cookies, Lupo.”

He shrugs. “She’s probably lived here for a long time. Look at this place. She might know something.”

“She might know absolutely nothing.”

“Okay. I’ll wait and see.”

She crosses her arms and sits back, the adult equivalent of pouting, and it’s only a matter of minutes before Nora returns with cups and saucers on a tray. She doles out the tea and offers the cookies again before settling into an armchair that looks like it pre-dates running water. “I suppose you want to hear the whole story.”

“Whole story?” Cyrus asks, sitting forward.

Nora nods. “I’ve lived here for many years,” she begins, stirring her tea idly. “Albert, my late husband, bought this house for us and the children years before the area was so developed. You can tell the difference between the houses that have been here for years and the houses that were built on their lots. Albert and I spent a lot of time getting to know our neighbors in those days, and I just kept doing it as they moved away and were replaced by younger and younger couples. The Huntingtons were especially nice. They moved in right after they were married, which was only a few months after Albert had passed, and Leslie introduced herself at a block party and offered to help me with my gardening. I’m the oldest woman in the neighborhood, any more. I think sometimes they forget that I’m even here. Leslie never did.”

Cyrus listens intently and tries to ignore the look on Barek’s face, like she’s considering throwing the teacup down and storming out. “Did they get along with everyone, the Huntingtons?”

“Of course!” Nora laughs lightly. “They were sweet, good people. When Leslie left her job in the mayor’s office eight years ago, her friends came by for weeks on end.”

“She left her job?” Barek puts in.

“Yes. She and Parker, they couldn’t have children. They were looking into adoption and Parker made enough money at the bank that Leslie decided to quit her job so that they would be better candidates for the adoption. It never really worked out.”

“Why not?”

“I… I don’t know.” She glances at Cyrus and then just shakes her head. “Leslie never said. She was very upset about it, and one night came to me in tears because they’d been turned down over another couple in the adoption of an infant. I told her about my daughter, Julie, who adopted a toddler from Korea with her husband, but she and Parker desperately wanted a baby.”

It takes him a moment to reconcile this with something he remembers reading in the file, and Barek looks at him funny when he starts patting himself down for his notebook. He’s shit at taking notes and everyone knows it, but he flips frantically through pages until he finds the scribble he’s looking for. “They fostered a kid, though, right?” he asks. “Seven years ago, a boy. CPS declared him a run-away…?”

“A little boy?” Nora frowns and leans back in her chair, the creases on her brow and around her mouth deepening. “You know, I think I remember that, but not very well. Leslie… She was withdrawn after the adoption fell through, and for a few months, I didn’t see or hear much from her. But then she was back to her usual self. I assumed she was just upset. Depressed, you know, since they’d decided not to have children.”

Barek tips her head just a half-degree. “Just like that?”

“I don’t pretend to understand the plight of a woman who can’t have what her heart most wants, Detective. After enough let downs, I might give up, too.” Nora stands. “More tea, cookies?”

“No, thanks,” Cyrus says, and sets down his cup.

It’s even cooler outside than it was when they’d entered the house, and he puts his hands in his pockets and surveys the neighborhood. Nora’s house is just far enough from the Huntington’s that he can see the car in the driveway and the bushes in the side yard, but no clear view of the front windows. He wonders how often Nora opened her front drapes and watched her younger friend move in and out of her house. 

“You know what I don’t get?” Barek asks, halfway down the walk. “Leslie Huntington told her neighbor everything but left out having a foster kid who ran away. I mean, that’s got to be hard on a family, taking a kid in and then losing him.”

“Yeah,” Cyrus agrees, and moves down the stairs. “Unless there’s a reason.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno,” he admits, and starts towards the car, “but there’s gotta be something. You don’t tell somebody everything and leave out the most important part unless there’s a really good reason. Trust me. I know.”

 

==

 

“Detective, I really wish there was something I could do to help, but Leslie and I rarely spoke after she quit her job.” Mayor Winchester puts down the watering can and leans against the edge of his desk. The office is filled with plants, which Alex supposes she should find weird, but it’s comfortable instead, like walking into a greenhouse. “The truth is, it was for the best. She was distant by the time she left. She desperately wanted to become a mother and there was very little I could do to help her with that.” He shakes his head. “It’s a shame, too. She had a great deal of love to give to a child. Do you have children?”

“A son,” Alex admits, and folds her hands in her lap. 

“Young?”

“Fourteen.”

“Ah, an age of exploration.” He comes over to one of the armchairs and settles in. Alex has visited the mayor’s office before, but almost twenty years ago, when her first husband died in the line of duty and she was invited to accept an award on his behalf. That office was all business, but Mayor Charles Winchester’s version of the same room is lush, almost extravagant, with thick rugs, plush couches and, clearly, plants of various colors and blooms. “Sadly, I’ve never had the pleasure.”

“It’s pleasure until your kid runs you ragged,” Alex assures him. “How much did Leslie say about her and Parker’s intentions to become parents?”

“Oh, gads of things.” Winchester dismisses the question with a wave of his hand. “Leslie was almost like a daughter to me. She was my personal assistant while I was running for office, and then stayed when I was elected. We were incredibly close. When she and Parker became engaged, she confided in me her childhood surgery and many of her worries. Parker was raised to be a family man and wanted children, and even after she told him and they agreed that adoption would be in their future, she feared he would leave her over such a thing.” 

“Do you think she was right?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I never got to know Parker very well. He was a distant man. I do remember it was his idea for Leslie to leave her job. The adoption agency they were working with really stressed the importance of family in the home. I’m sure you can understand, Leslie worked long hours. Parker was no better. Someone needed to compromise.”

“I see.” Alex shifts in her seat and glances out the window. It’s getting late, and Bobby’s probably on his way home. She catches herself thinking, just momentarily, what life would have been like were he not a teacher. If they had both been in time-consuming careers – both detectives, for instance – they probably would have never had a son. “Mayor Winchester, were you aware that Leslie and Parker briefly had a foster child?”

He’s clearly caught off-guard and blinks twice, almost as though he needs to focus more clearly on Alex. “I must admit,” he says after a moment’s deliberation, worrying his lip so subtly Alex almost doesn’t notice, “that is something I haven’t considered in a long time.”

She sits forward. “So you were aware?”

“Yes, well… Within reason.” He purses his lips for a moment, as though carefully searching for the words. Bobby has a similar version of the expression, though he usually paces the room while trying it on. “Leslie called me late one evening four or five years ago and asked me if I had any experience with Child Protective Services. I asked why, and she explained that they had taken in a foster son and were afraid that CPS was going to take him away. Some trivial matter that wasn’t worth noting. Halfway through the call, she told me that she’d misunderstood the problem and never mind, she must go. I dismissed it as stress. Children in the system are difficult to work with. I’ve done charity fundraisers and so many are almost irrevocably broken by the time they arrive at their foster homes. A young boy? Leslie was a gentle soul. It had to be difficult.”

Alex searches her memory for Cyrus’s briefing that morning. He’d mentioned the foster child, she certainly remembers that, but she could have sworn the child had run away seven years earlier, not four or five. She’s good with dates, and frowns when she asks, “And you’re sure this was four or five years ago?”

“Yes. During my reelection campaign. I was exhausted and almost didn’t answer the phone, but when I saw it was Leslie, I feared it was important. She’d become almost a memory at that point, for the amount I talked to her.” He sighs and shakes his head. “She was a beautiful soul, Detective Eames. I’m sorry you never met her. She lit up a room.”

“I – “ She begins, but then her cell phone is ringing and she’s fumbling to pull it out of her pocket. The number is unfamiliar but has a Manhattan area code, so she smiles as she excuses herself and stands to cross the room. “Eames.”

“Okay, listen to this,” and Cyrus’s voice is rushed and muddled, the noise of a city street in the background. “Foster kid’s legit. I talked to a neighbor who said the Huntingtons were desperate for a baby. She’s pretty sure the foster kid ran off.”

“Really?” Alex glances back at Winchester, who’s once again watering his plants. “How long ago?”

“She wasn’t sure. In our timeline.”

“Because I have a conflicting report.”

There’s a beat of pause. “What?”

“The foster son was still in the picture four or five years ago.” 

“The source reliable?” When Alex doesn’t answer for a second, Cyrus makes a little sound. “Mayor. Right. So, what now?”

Cyrus asks the question like he’s seventeen all over again, looking for approval and guidance from someone wiser than him, and Alex suddenly feels like the wrong person to be teaching him. It’s not that she’s incapable, it’s not that she’s not good enough, but it’s the fact that Cyrus Lupo used to be one of Bobby’s students – one of her students – and now, he’s not a kid anymore. It’s easy to tell Johnny to do his homework or yell at a junior to stop running football plays in the hall, but Cyrus Lupo has got to be thirty-two years old by now. He’s not a kid anymore.

“Eames?”

He says her name like Ross does, no _Officer_ or _Miss_ in front of it, and that pulls her back. 

“Call CPS. See if we can get a meeting tomorrow. The records shouldn’t be sealed for an AWOL kid.”

“If he’s AWOL,” Cyrus points out.

“Well, if he’s not…” And Alex glances out the window and down at New York City, darkening and bustling in front of them. “If he’s not, then we’ve gotta figure out where he is.”

 

==

 

“It’s quiet,” Bobby points out.

He’s not sure how long they’ve been lying in the dark, but he’s been listening to Alex’s breathing and his own just long enough to know that the neighborhood is quieter than it’s been in the past few weeks. Usually, at this time of night, there are still people walking their dogs or chatting on the phone on their back porches, but not tonight. Tonight, even with the window cracked open for air, all he can hear is his breath, Alex’s breath, and the dishwasher running in the kitchen.

Alex sighs and pushes her face against his shoulder. “Too quiet,” she murmurs, and she’s just close enough that it lets Bobby gauge how upset she is. The worse the case, the closer she lies to him. By the time her thoughts are the darkness before dawn, she practically sprawls across his chest.

She’s close enough now, and he drags his knuckles up and down her arm. 

“I kept thinking – you know, how it would have been for other people. For us.” He shifts, not necessarily out of discomfort, but because years of balancing teaching – not a job for hearts on sleeves – and his own personal issues have left their mark. “A civil servant, her husband, a child… It’s not a far cry from our life, other than Johnny being more than a mystery in an empty room.”

She sighs, warm breath against his skin. “I never thought of the city as dangerous. I’ve lived here my whole life, and even after Joe, I always felt secure. It’s scarier when it’s right across the street. I can see them when I close my eyes. It’s – it’s different.”

“You could ask to be removed from the case.”

“What good would that do? Carolyn wants to kill Lupo. I at least need to be there as a referee.” She turns her head to look up at him. “What about you?”

He meets her eyes. “What about me?”

“Do you want to move from here?”

“No place is more or less safe than another. We make places safe. We… Make each other feel secure.” Bobby slithers in the space between them, finds the angle to kiss her, and even after all the years – dating and marriage and Johnny and moving, plus promotions and club responsibilities and police commendations – it still gives him a thrill, like being fifteen again and having his first kiss. It’s what he thinks Shakespeare wrote about in his sonnets, the idea of being so completely lost in someone else that the feeling outlives time, and when Alex crawls from next to him to straddle him, he’s certain that’s what the bard meant. There’s no other alternative. 

“I want to keep you safe,” and he realizes it’s his voice saying those words only after he’s running his hands up her back, slender and soft when her top’s peeled away, gooseflesh rising at the roughness of his palms. “I want to – I want to make sure that you’re all right.”

“I’m all right, Bobby.” She practically whispers it.

“I need to know that you are. All the time.” She shifts, pushing and pulling away layers of pajamas that no longer matter, her fingernails catching his skin on the inside of his thighs and making his breath catch. “It’s what I have to do. I’m not a cop, but – but it’s the most important thing.”

“I know.” Her hands land on his chest. He finds her hips and holds on. Her first motion is like pushing a canoe away from the shore and feeling the waves against the boat, almost out of control. He catches himself and lies back, staring at her. Her hair is longer than it was when they met, her eyes dark in the poor light of their bedroom, and she tilts her head back just enough that he can admire the line of her neck, of her shoulder, of her whole form above him. 

The conversation ebbs, whispering away like the end of the tide, and as much as Bobby would like to find better words to say what he means – he can read a thousand books, quote the greatest authors in history, but his lips never fully form the words to tell his wife how much he loves her – he’s overtaken by the way Alex moves, holding on to him and rocking, her legs spread and hips moving in a perfect cadence. She’s beautiful, but then, she always has been, and Bobby feels his way up her ribcage, over her shoulder blades, and then down her front, spending time on her breasts and her belly and lower, until she’s out of words and on to sounds that fill his ears and break the silence of the street. 

“Alex,” he murmurs when he’s growing close, and there’s not fear of the name on his lips, just fondness and need and _want_. His fingers dig into her hips and she leans down to kiss him, hard and greedy, until she’s moaning helplessly into his mouth.

He hears her before he feels the way her whole body locks and spasms. It’s all he needs. It’s all he’s ever needed, and from how she refuses to stop, even when she’s panting desperately into his ear, he knows that she’s aware of her position as his kryptonite.

His chest his still heaving when he runs his hands up and down her skin, touching every last inch of her body, brushing hair off the back of her sweat-dampened neck and teasing fingertips over the curve of her ass. 

“We think,” she says after a long stretch of the too-quiet quiet, her head on his chest and her legs still on either side of his hips, her whole body comfortable stretched across his, “that the Huntingtons had a foster son, and that someone lied about him running away.”

Bobby closes his eyes and lets himself drift close to sleep. Her voice is what grounds him to the waking world. “Why would anyone lie about that?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “Maybe they were trying to protect themselves.”

“Abuse?” He runs fingers through her hair. “You said they were desperate for a child. Why hide and hurt something you wanted so badly? Parents who have to sacrifice a great deal for children usually end up protecting their children almost fanatically. They don’t just let them run away, or hide them away.”

“They wanted a baby,” she murmurs. “Not just any child. They wanted to start from scratch.”

He sighed. “And now there’s a boy out there somewhere who may or may not have been a victim of… What? The year he was born?”

“The mayor said they were good people.” Alex shifted, her head settling on his shoulder after a series of little tickles he recognizes as tiny kisses across his skin. “It’s hard to believe he got the entirely wrong impression about them.”

“We all believe the best in everyone, until they prove us wrong. Even our neighbors.”

 

==

 

“Huntington, you say?” The CPS caseworker drums her fingers on the mousepad while she waits for the computer to work. It’s an old model, slow, and Cyrus catches himself before he points out that it would go ten times faster if she didn’t have YouTube and MSN messenger open in the tray. “I don’t remember the couple, but if it was seven years ago, I was new. We go through so many children – “

“Humor us,” Alex says. 

Cyrus has been to CPS offices before but this one is ten times more cluttered than what he’s used to. The little plastic-and-faux-wood placard on the caseworker’s desk says Alice Cambol and it reminds him of a song he learned as a kid, the one about Alice the camel and a bunch of humps. Arranged next to it and really not arranged at all, are various toys: a stress ball shaped like a goofy face, a container of Silly Putty, a slinky with several bent bits, two plastic dinosaurs, and a rubber snake. He picks up one of the dinosaurs and has it “walk” on the edge of the desk, and Alice Cambol ( _so ride, Alice, ride_ ) sends him a dirty look. 

He forces a half-smile and puts it back. 

“Here we are! Leslie and Parker Huntington. Oh, I remember them, now.” She leans back in her seat and shakes her head. “Sad case. They were so fit, but Pete – “

“Pete?” None of the distractions work on Cyrus now. He narrows his attention in on the caseworker.

“The boy we placed with them was Peter Jacobsen,” she explains, and spins in her chair to open the file cabinet behind her. There’s a moment of rooting around before she produces a thick CPS case file, one of many scattered around her desk, file cabinet, and indeed, the whole office. “He was ten years old but came into our custody at six. His biological parents beat him and locked him in his room, poor boy, and the first home we placed him with…”

She lets the comment end with a shake of her head. Cyrus knows that’s never a good sign. “What about them?”

“It wasn’t a good fit. They were very stern, and even though they passed all of our initial checks, they used corporal punishment on their foster children. Peter couldn’t handle the pressure. He lashed out. We thought the Huntingtons would be a perfect home. Young parents really interested in making the difference in a child’s life.”

“So what happened?” Alex presses. 

“Pete ran away about a month into the placement. Mrs. Huntington called me hysterical. Said she didn’t know what to do, but he was gone. We filed with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, we opened all the proper channels, but no one has seen Pete since.” She closes the folder. “It happens, occasionally. There’s not much else we can do.”

Cyrus watches the way Alex’s jaw clenches. He remembers that look from when she dealt with particularly hardened brats back in high school. It makes him sit forward in his chair. “Anything else?” he asks. 

“You know,” the caseworker says, “there was something. The weirdest incident. About two and a half years after Pete left and the file closed, we got a call from one of the Huntington’s neighbors. Said they heard yelling and thought it was a child.” She shakes her head, wearing one of those _people are insane_ expressions. “I could have gone over there, but instead, I called Mrs. Huntington to explain the call we’ve gotten. She said that they had their nephew in town for the weekend and that he was two-and-a-half and throwing a tantrum. We never got any more complaints.”

Alex glances at Cyrus. “You’re sure she said nephew?”

“Oh, positive. She went on and on about the terrible twos.” She chuckles. “Mrs. Huntington was always a very good-humored and kind. It’s really a shame, what happened to her.”

Cyrus can’t wait until they’re out the door to say what’s in his head, so he blurts to Alex as they’re halfway to the entrance, “The Huntingtons didn’t have nieces and nephews.”

“It confirms the mayor’s story,” she responds, nodding. “Four or five years ago, Leslie was afraid of having problems with CPS.”

“But the kid was gone. I mean, you don’t have problems with a kid who’s not there.” He pauses, one hand on the panic bar that will take them outside. “Unless the kid wasn’t gone.”

Alex stops, too. “What?”

“Remember the time Ed tried to play you guys?” he asks. The memory is crystal-clear, fresh in his mind. “He wasn’t supposed to go on the city weekend but he hid in the bus bathroom on the way down and managed to go the whole time without you knowing he was there?”

“And Van Buren nearly killed him,” but Alex nods.

“Yeah, yeah, but think about it: everybody thought he was somewhere, and he wasn’t.”

She glances at him for a moment, and Cyrus feels like he’s sixteen again, caught with cigarettes on the roof because he’d thought smoking might make him cooler. 

“We need to call Ross,” she finally decides, and pushes through the doors. 

Cyrus grins to himself. Maybe not sixteen. Finally. 

 

==

 

“Hey.”

It used to surprise Bobby how much Johnny – the first in that generation of Gorens – is actually an Eames. Even when he was little, he had all the traits: looks, behaviors, speaking patterns, and, now that he’s fourteen, Bobby’s grateful. He’s not the average man, he supposes, who secretly watches his son grow and wants him to turn into a young facsimile of himself; he’s never cared as long as Johnny’s happy. There’s too much baggage, too much heartbreak, associated with being a Goren. Johnny doesn’t deserve that, so he may as well look like his namesakes. Bobby can live with that.

Johnny Goren stands in the doorway to his father’s classroom with his hands in his pockets and one of his suitemates, Ted, behind him. Bobby knows Ted because Ted is chubby and awkward, and while he can do amazing things with numbers, Bobby’s not sure he can write a coherent sentence. He’s fidgeting, nervous, clearly not used to visiting teachers after hours.

Johnny, ever an Eames, just walks in.

“Hey,” Bobby replies. He tries to play stranger, because he promised himself he wouldn’t be a “dad” when freshman year started for his son.

It doesn’t work.

“We were in Munch’s history class, doing our current events project,” Johnny starts awkwardly, and in that, he is a Goren, “and Ted was reading the newspaper. And he – he said there was this big thing – what was it?”

He glances at Ted. Bobby follows his eyes.

Ted wriggles in the doorway. “A murder.”

“No, I mean – “

“A double-murder in Henry Park.”

“Yeah. And, I mean, Henry Park. That’s our neighborhood, Dad.”

There’s a tiny tremor in the back of his voice, and Bobby considers what to say next. He finally decides on, “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Bobby reaches onto his desk for something to toy with and finds a pen. He rolls it between his fingers as a distraction. He’s never been good at talking to Johnny about serious things. Television shows, books, movies, he’s the perfect parent for that. Literary theory, psychology, religion, any of those, he can do. The birds and the bees, or why he and Alex weren’t comfortable letting him go on a weekend with just a friend and a friend’s older brother? He trips over his tongue and needs something to keep him busy. Their first conversation about sex – the inevitable “where do babies come from and why doesn’t Mommy have more of them?” – involved three crossword puzzles (Bobby’s) and a coloring book (six-year-old Johnny’s) to get through. 

It hasn’t improved. 

“I – there were shots,” and he worries the little arm of the pen between his fingers, twisting it out of shape. “Your mom and I, we were in the house and we heard them. She – we both responded. It was too late.”

“So… Is Mom on the case?”

Usually, the rule is that they leave Johnny out of any case Alex works. 

Bobby catches his eye. “Yes.”

“Is that allowed?” Ted blurts out, and then turns as red as the ketchup splotch on his collar.

“It’s not _not_ allowed,” he says, dismissing the idea with a half-shrug. “The Major Case Squad can pick up any case they want.” He doesn’t look away from Johnny. He watches his expression, somewhere between uncertainty and terror. “Her captain, he’s a good guy. He knows that it’s our neighborhood. He wanted – “

“Who died?” Johnny cuts in.

He wets his lips. “The Huntingtons. They lived across and down the street, in that blue house. Just them. They – “ He doesn’t know what Alex has found out about the son, and doesn’t know if he’d share it with Johnny if he had the information. “Just them.”

“Like, a robber?”

“No. It was – They think it was personal.” Bobby puts his pen down, the arm on the cap now completely misshapen. “It was the kind of thing that… No one who didn’t know them would do it. Someone meant to hurt them. Kill them. It wasn’t a mistake.”

It’s the most talk of crime and punishment in the non-hypothetical that Bobby and Johnny have ever engaged in, and Johnny moves to lean against the board. There’s chalk on it and he’ll probably end up with fine white streaks on his sweater, but he’s unconcerned. His eyes are all for Bobby, watching him, and Bobby recognizes the face from when Johnny was eight and nine years old. He’d had a terrible time memorizing his multiplication tables, and every night after dinner, Bobby sat with him and watched that face contort and twist as he tried to remember what seven times nine or eight times six equaled. He thinks by moving his brow and frowning enough, the answers will come. 

Bobby secretly uses it to gauge the difficulty of his English exams. 

“So… Why?” Johnny asks it quietly, his lips pursed.

“Why?”

“Why would someone do that? I mean, they’ve got to have a pretty good reason, but… Why would you just go and kill someone that way?”

“I – I don’t know.” Bobby pauses after he says it and watches the way Johnny’s face falls. It’s almost insignificant, but Bobby feels just the tiniest touch of guilt. He’s supposed to have the answers. Most of the time, he does. “I hope – are you all right? I mean, with everything?”

Johnny shrugs. “I guess. It’s… Weird.”

“Yeah.” Another stretch of silence. “Listen, if you want, I’m leaving at five. You can come with, have dinner with me and your mom, sleep at – “

“Nah,” and he looks at Ted, still standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. “Josh rented a bunch of movies. We’re gonna watch them and pig out on pizza.”

“Did Headmistress Van Buren give you permission?” There’s just a long enough pause to answer Bobby’s question, and when he stands, it’s to fish his wallet out of his back pocket. He finds a twenty and hands it over. “If anyone asks,” he says, and chances a smile, “I didn’t hear anything and I’m very disappointed in you.”

He knows Johnny’s surprised. He can count on one hand the number of times they’ve conspired together on everything, especially something that’s expressly prohibited in the Manhattan Prep student handbook. (Twenty-four hour notice is required but mostly impossible, and Anita likes it this way.) He pockets the cash and his gaze dwells on Bobby for a moment. They don’t spend as much time together as they used to. Johnny lives away from home, spends his weekends on campus or in the city with friends, and their conversations are usually about school, debate club, or something else mundane. The days of watching television together or discussing why Catholics choose to follow so many rules of the church to the letter while other Christian sects prefer a looser interpretation of the Bible have passed, and Bobby feels like he connects with his son more through his essays on _A Separate Peace_ and _Gulliver’s Travels_ than he does through conversation, these days. 

“Tell Mom I’ll call tonight,” Johnny says after a long pause, and smiles at Bobby. “She’s probably worried.”

“You know your mom,” and it’s light-hearted. “She worries without really worrying.”

Bobby watches Johnny leave, Ted following on his heels like an dog who hasn’t really learned how to function on his own yet, and the room is quiet without him in it. He busies himself for a few moments, picking up books and tidying a shelf that’s out of order, but he finally gives up and walks over to his desk phone. Alex’s cell number is sense memory, anymore, and he dials every number without looking or, it seems, even pausing to remember.

“Eames,” she answers, in a tone that makes it clear that she never bothered to check the caller ID.

“Hey,” he says, and shifts to sit on the edge of his desk.

“Bobby.” He can hear the squad room in the background: ringing phones, muted conversations, the Xerox machine (right behind Alex’s desk and slightly to the left) running. “Is everything all – “

“I talked to Johnny. I just – I wanted you to know that I talked to him. And he’s okay. He’s… He wanted to know more about why it happened than what happened. He read it in the paper and I think he got all that he needed to know, just not everything he wanted to.”

“Does he want to come home tonight?”

“No. I think he wants to be normal, keep going. He wasn’t there, it’s not something he’ll remember for a long time, it’s just… Something that happened. Close to home.” He toys with the pen again, with the bent arm on the cap. “Are you all right?”

“I am.” It’s soft and genuine. “Are you?”

“I – John was saying,” and he only calls Munch “John” when it’s a conversation he’s not involved in; it’s too strange, otherwise, like syllables his lips have never formed before, “that the worst crimes happen outside of the city, but I keep thinking… The worst crimes aren’t real crimes. It’s more abstract. The worst crimes are the things that… That catch in our minds. The things that happen so close to us that we can’t forget them, those are the worst kinds of crimes. And they’re different for everyone, so you can’t really stop them.”

The squad room keeps moving, keeps broadcasting itself over the connection, but for a moment there’s no other sound and it’s just Bobby breathing on his end and knowing Alex is on the other, while strangers talk and ringers start and stop. “I think you’re right,” Alex finally says. 

“I’m leaving at five.”

“I’m leaving a little before that. We’ve hit a snag and Barek and Lupo are going to stay later and see if they can work with some of the CPS records. They’re just old enough that it’s hard to trace them well.” There’s another beat of pause. “I’ll see you when you get home, Bobby.”

“I’ll get pizza on the way. For dinner.”

“All right.”

Bobby knows why she waits after she says it. He waits too. They don’t say it – they’re not the kind to say it – but they pause for it and that’s almost enough. 

“See you soon.”

“You, too.”

He hangs up the phone and looks at it for a moment too long before he goes back to his desk.

There’s work he still has to do, and even if he doesn’t necessarily want to, it needs to be done.

 

==

 

“He was brought in last night,” says the Assistant District Attorney in charge of Manhattan’s sex crimes division. She leans on the lip of the interrogation window and watches the suspect through the one-way glass. “They booked him for being under the influence, underage drinking, indecent exposure, and drunk and disorderly. Then one of the uniforms noticed the blood under his nails.”

“He doesn’t look so bad,” Cyrus points out.

Alexandra Cabot glances at him. “Do they ever?”

The room MCS uses to watch interrogations is spacious with two, comfortable with three, but suddenly cramped with five, and Alex lets her eyes rest on the prosecutor longer than perhaps she should. Alexandra Cabot looks the part, but then, she did the last time Major Case and Special Victims worked together, three years ago; blonde, outspoken, honest, and compassionate, she’s the kind of young woman Jack McCoy would be proud to say graduated from his mock trial team. Of course, she’s not the only one fluent in legalese – Mike Cutter sits second chair in homicide and, last Alex heard, Casey Novak quit professional women’s softball for law school – but she commands the interrogation room in a way that Ross barely can. 

Her eyes never leave the face of Peter Jacobsen.

Peter Jacobsen is clearly seventeen years old and sits like a seventeen-year-old boy does, slouched in the metal, straight-backed chair with his legs partially spread and his hands dancing across the tabletop, searching for distractions. Alex’s seen it a thousand times with boys in trouble – her days as a school police liaison served her well – but there’s something odd about Peter. He’s wearing pajamas, for one, and they’re almost too small, short in the leg and tight in the chest with spaceships and stars plastered across them. But more than that, he seems… Young. His countenance almost reminds her of Johnny, or a boy even younger, from the face he makes when the air conditioning goes on with a loud pop to the way he starts biting his nails.

“I called George Huang – you remember Dr. Huang,” and Cabot says it to Cyrus as a throwaway comment. “He’ll be here in five minutes.”

“Is standard procedure bringing in the shrink first?” asks Ross, and only Alex can tell that he’s not asking just out of curiosity.

Cabot glances over her shoulder. “According to the state of New York,” she reports, “this kid’s been in the wind for the last seven years. Unless you have a detective who can handle him with the kid gloves on, we’ve got to have Huang and a CPS caseworker. Miss Cambol’s on her way, but Huang will get here first.”

There’s a long pause, and Alex watches Peter Jacobsen switch fingernails to gnaw on. She almost doesn’t hear Barek when she says, “What about Eames?”

She looks over. “What?”

“She worked school security,” Barek keeps going, “and she has a teenager. We could get a jump start.”

Cyrus watches her for a moment and so does Ross, but it’s Cabot who’s chewing on her lip. “What do you say?” she asks finally. “Are you comfortable talking to him?”

Alex has to consider the question. Interviewing a teenage suspect isn’t interviewing a kid who might have keyed a teacher’s car or grilling Johnny for information about where he got a pack of cigarettes. They know next to nothing about Peter Jacobsen. In fact, Barek and Cyrus spent half the night on the phone with juvenile facilities trying to figure out if he’d ever been in the system. The only reason SVU picked him up was because he’d flashed a few women on the street. He shouldn’t be in their interview room, he should be bothering other teenagers. Probably girl teenagers.

She’s smart enough to know, however, that it’s her or no one. “Lupo’s with me,” she decides, and heads for the door.

She hears Cyrus sputter. “I’m not sure – “

“You’re a young man,” she replies, and looks back at him. “You’re not going to threaten him. He needs someone else in there besides me. I’m old enough to be his mother, and that might not go over well.”

Cyrus stares at her, big-eyed like a spooked family pet, and then finally heads after her, through the door. There are two uniforms guarding the entrance to the interview room and he’s about to push through when Alex holds up a hand. There are vending machines nearby – soda and sweets – and she digs out a dollar bill and produces a can of Coca Cola. 

No one could ever say she doesn’t know the way to a teenager’s heart.

Peter looks up at both of them when they enter and shifts around on his chair, antsy. Alex leans forward and watches him shrink away. He would probably move all the way across the room, she thinks, if Cyrus wasn’t rounding the table like a prize-fighter. “Hi, Peter,” she greets, and sets down the soda.

He glances away and over at Cyrus. “Hi.”

“My name’s Alex.”

“Hi.” He doesn’t blink when she sits down next to him. He’s focused on the way Cyrus paces through the room.

“That’s my friend Cyrus. He’s a cop.”

“You’re both cops.” Peter’s head whips around and now that she can see his eyes, Alex sees it all: maniacal fear, helplessness, desperation. A normal seventeen-year-old boy might have that expression after a car crash or watching a friend die, but not after being brought it for disorderly conduct. A normal seventeen-year-old boy would either be recalcitrant or remorseful. 

He just looks terrified.

“We are,” she informs him, and leans back in the seat. “Do you know why the cops arrested you?”

His eyes dropped. “I was being naughty.”

There’s a tiny sound from Cyrus. It makes Peter flinch. She ignores it. “Naughty?” she asks.

“Yeah. I drank some stuff in the cabinet that Dad said I wasn’t allowed to have. I just – I needed to take something and we only had two water bottles left, so I took those bottles, too. It tasted really bad.”

“Where were you taking water bottles?” 

“Far away.” He hazards another look at her. “I was running away.”

Alex feels a little like someone’s mixed two puzzles with similar images together in the same box. She can absolutely put them together, given enough time and effort, but right now, nothing is snapping into place. The pieces are scattered and there’s something about the way Peter answers her that doesn’t make sense. 

She scoots forward, onto the edge of her seat. It makes Peter vibrate in his. “Away from what?” she asks gently.

He mutters something to himself, barely audible.

“It’s all right. You can tell me.” She glances at Cyrus. He’s finally calmed and is leaning against the wall, just watching. “Cyrus and I are the good guys.”

The silence is thick enough to slice. Alex isn’t even sure Peter’s breathing until he says, still whispering, “From the bad thing.”

“What bad thing?” she presses.

“The bad thing I did.”

His statement, just one sentence, is the law enforcement equivalent of dropping a piano on the sidewalk, and before Alex can ask anything else Cyrus comes away from the wall and deposits himself in the chair right across from Peter. “You did it?” he asked, and even though his voice is gentle, it’s not enough.

Alex can see that Peter’s spooked seconds before he moves.

His chair falls over when he pushes out of it, a clatter of metal on tile loud enough that one of the uniforms starts to open the door. “We’re fine!” Alex snaps, and she wants to take Cyrus by the collar and drag him into Ross’s office the way she used to do with Ed Green to Anita Van Buren’s, but she holds her cool. The door latch engages again, and when she turns back, Peter is standing in the corner, his back against the wall, his eyes large and wild. 

“I didn’t mean to!” he announces, and his voice is shrill and panicked. “I didn’t mean to but they were bad and they told me that I should be safe around bad people so I was! I was!”

It’s the kind of logic that only makes sense to – 

Alex’s whirring gears click into place. It’s the kind of logic that only makes sense to a small child. 

Peter is not a small child. Moreover, all his CPS documents claim that he’s not developmentally disabled, that he doesn’t have the mind of a child. When she stands, though, she’s certain he’s at least six feet tall, and he has the broad shoulders of a boy who is days away from becoming a man. 

“Can you tell me what happened, Peter?” she asks, and keeps her voice quiet. A glance at Cyrus reveals that he’s slouched, looking almost guilty. He knows what he’s done almost as acutely as Peter knows his own actions.

Peter plays with the frayed hem of his pajama top. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” she soothes, “but there’s a – a cop rule. We need to hear you say everything.”

He purses his lips and breathes in and out, heavy little pants and gasps. Johnny used to make that sound when he was a baby, Alex remembers, when he was just on the edge of distress. They would lie in bed in the morning and listen to that sound, waiting for the crying to start.

“They used to be nice,” he murmurs, and it’s so quiet, Alex can scarcely hear him. “They bought me toys and told me I was going to be their little boy. I – the families I was with, they were bad. They were mean and hit me, and I thought that these people would be my mom and dad. I just wanted a mom and dad. But then, one day, they took all my toys away.”

She blinks. That doesn’t fit the personalities of the Huntingtons she’s met in her mind, the Huntingtons everyone says are kind and _good_. “Why?”

“They said – they said I was their baby boy.” He’s starting to relax, shoulders sloping the smallest bit. “They said babies can’t have toys like mine so they took them away. Changed all my clothes, and made me wear diapers. I drank out of bottles, milk and stuff. And they changed my diaper and sung me to sleep and just gave me rattles to play with.”

Alex’s stomach twists. “For the whole time you were with them?”

He shakes his head. “No. No, I had birthdays. First birthday, second birthday, with balloons and candles and cake. And then I started getting other toys. A tricycle. Blocks. But I – I’m not a baby.” The statement is the first that registers as clear and firm. His jaw sets. “I’m not a baby. I’m – I’m not seven. But they didn’t care. They said I was their baby and I had to act like my age. And when I didn’t, they hurt me.”

“Hurt you how?”

“Spankings.” He shifts. “Time outs in the basement. Sometimes, when I was still a baby, they wouldn’t change my diaper.”

There’s a noise as Cyrus pushes his chair back and walks across the room. This time, Alex sees, he’s not agitated at Peter but at his words. Alex can’t blame him. “That’s all?” she asks gently.

“All?” Peter looks at her, wide-eyed and frightened. He reminds her of a startled rabbit, or even Bobby caught off guard. “They locked me in my room and made my wear little kid clothes! I never got to leave or do anything and then – and then they said I was going back!”

“Going back?”

“I don’t know. They just said – they said I had to go away.” His lips move from tight to trembling and he looks at Alex, a desperate, pleading look. “I wanted – I didn’t know what to do! They were so mean but they wanted to get rid of me and I just…” Tears, fresh and wet, started streaming down his cheeks. “I did the bad thing. He had a gun and I – I did the bad thing and I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be a bad boy. I didn’t want to be a bad boy.”

He rocks in his chair and recoils when Alex offers a hand, which feels somehow like she’s been burned. Before she can soothe him, however, the door opens and George Huang walks in, wearing a business suit that looks a bit too big. “Let me talk with him,” he says, and it’s clear that he’s aiming the statement at her.

She wonders if it’s something she’s said that brings about that tone, or just Peter’s voice.

Cyrus heads straight for the door, no prejudice there, but she’s stopped by a little whine from Peter. “I want my mommy,” he moans, and it’s like being stabbed in the stomach. Alex pauses and looks at him over her shoulder, a trembling mass of a man’s body and a little boy’s sobs.

“Detective, please,” Huang says, and she realizes when she hears him that it can’t be the first time he’s said it. She nods and steps out, but slowly.

She can’t stop thinking of Johnny. 

Peter Jacobsen, before the Huntingtons turned him into this, had been – and still is – somebody’s son.

 

===

 

“Man, that sucks.”

Since getting back together with Ed – not that they’re really together, Cyrus tells himself, because they’re watching baseball and fucking which isn’t really couple stuff (except for the part where Ed’s stayed over twice and the part where he’s pretty sure Ed doesn’t go on any other dates, which has got to be something weird for _Ed_ ) – they’ve been going to this dive of a Chinese place just around the corner from Ed’s expensive, sports-medicine-funded apartment. It’s like playing “how the other half lives,” because they eat food that probably is condemned in parts of the world and then go up to sit in front of Ed’s wall-mounted plasma screen, drink beer, and watch whatever’s on. The bonus of the place, though, is that there’s rarely more than two or three people eating, and that means they can have private conversations.

The first time they went there, Ed’d spent half an hour talking (not subtly) about all the sex they could potentially have been having if Cyrus hadn’t been starving. No one had blinked.

This time, though, Cyrus’s just finished telling him about Pete Jacobsen and the Huntingtons, about a kid so fucked up by crazy fucked up adults in his life that he’d found the “just in case we get robbed” gun and a kitchen knife and done things that he didn’t have the words for to his foster parents. He’d let them suffer. Ed, for all his love of kids and eating, put down his chopsticks to listen and didn’t say anything until the end.

Cyrus snorts. “Yeah, it does.”

“No, I mean… It really sucks, Lup.” Whatever derisive, dismissive quality had touched Ed’s voice the first time has faded, and he pokes at his fried rice. “I mean, just thinking of some crazy people treating their kid like that is enough to make you want to… I dunno. Start up some team that takes people like that off the streets.”

“That’s what I’m supposed to do,” he suggest with a little half-smile.

“Nah, but shit.” His eyes move to Cyrus’s and stay there for a moment. “You okay?”

He thinks about it, maybe longer than he should. Ed’s watching him, because Ed does that sort of shit, mostly when he’s trying to shave or on the phone with somebody. This is a different kind of watching, not making faces. He actually really cares.

That’s sort of the thing that he’d been getting at with Barek. He kept high school kind of close because people there cared about him. Still care about him, because Mike calls a couple times a month and he talks to people like Casey and Lynn on Facebook. 

“I guess,” he answers, because what else do you say?

“Yeah,” and Ed stands up as he says it. Cyrus isn’t sure what he’s doing until he gets to the counter and trades a twenty (way more than what dinner is worth) for a couple of takeaway cartons. He scoops his leftovers into one and Cyrus’s into the other, and when they don’t split right, just shoves it all together. Cyrus knows better than to argue about it, because they won’t care about what’s in them when 3 a.m. rolls around and they’re up to snack and fuck.

He’s not sure he wants to fuck, though. Definitely not tonight. Maybe never again.

“If you want me to take off…” he starts to say when they hit the sidewalk.

Ed just looks at him. “You wanna go?”

“Not what I meant. I’m just saying – “

“You had a fucked-up day. I’m not letting you go home and think about that.”

“No?”

“Hell no.”

The doorman shoots them a smile and a knowing look, one that creeped Cyrus out the first time he saw it but now is sort of par for the course. They ride the elevator up and Ed tosses open the door with a flourish. He’s got nice rugs and leather couches, but it’s a guy’s place. Cyrus likes that about it. It’s sort of like going back to the old suite, only bigger and with better toys. Plus, the window looks out over the city street and not the dumpsters behind the cafeteria. 

Cyrus doesn’t bother asking Ed what he wants to do. It’s routine. He tosses his coat over a chair, then his tie, and flops onto the couch. It’s early and the game’s not on, so he starts surfing through channels. _Wheel of Fortune_. _Access Hollywood_. A rerun of _The Deadliest Catch_.

He leaves the last one on and is just starting to kind of get into it (as much as you get into anything when your head’s all over the place) when Ed hops the back of the couch like he’s sixteen again and lands cleanly next to him. “Hey,” he says with a grin.

Cyrus tries to return it. It’s nearly impossible. “Hey.”

“Crab fishing?”

“Sure.” 

“‘Cause, I mean, I’ve got the good porn.”

“You only want me for the sex, or what?”

It comes out the wrong way and he knows it the second he hears his own voice, so there it is: the waiting. Ed’s caught by surprise, Cyrus can see it in his face, and this can go one of two ways. Ed can get pissed about it or Ed can ignore it. Or Cyrus himself can leave, way number three, but Ed’s couch is comfortable and he’s got a great TV.

And he’s right there. 

“Shut up,” he says, and when Cyrus wants to argue, there are lips on his. It’s not like every one of Ed’s other kisses. There’s no promise of where else those lips are going to go. It’s like… Cyrus almost smiles, because it’s like the three weeks Ed wouldn’t let them have sex. It’s foreplay without any _aft_ play (and when he was seventeen, he sure as hell didn’t know that word), and he admits in his head that it feels better than the kissing against a wall before the pants come off.

It’s sort of what he needs, just leaning into Ed and letting Ed slide an arm around him. 

He’ll never figure out how Ed always knows what he needs before he can figure it out himself. 

Either way, when there’s air between them again, Cyrus feels better. Well, not better. That’s the wrong word. He doesn’t feel like the world’s starting to cave in, anymore, and that’s sort of a start.

“Crab fishing.” Ed leans back on the couch but doesn’t let go of him. He probably won’t call it cuddling. Cyrus will. “You know what they need on their ship?”

“Don’t say it.”

He grins. “Chicks. Tons more chicks.”

“Shut up, I’m watching the crabs.”

“Hey, so am I,” but Ed’s sliding fingers in his hair almost sort of idly, like it’s just something that he does to people, and while Cyrus watches the show – and even when he closes his eyes and just rests against Ed’s shoulder – he knows Ed’s not watching anything besides him.

Yeah.

Exactly what he needs. 

 

== 

 

"But why?"

Johnny asks the question like Johnny asks every question: curiously. Bobby likes to think that Alex gave him his curiosity, this unending need to know everything, because it feels like a detective's trait; sometimes, he has to admit he even stops to think about Johnny becoming a detective. Frank wanted to be one, once, Bobby himself thought about it after the army, and Alex is the detective daughter of a detective father. Johnny might even be good at it – he’s observant and clever – but that said, there's a tiny part of him, the fatherly part, that doesn't like thinking about his son working a dangerous job. Alex is enough. Functioning while worrying about the most important people in his life – his wife, and he still feels just a tiny spark of pride when he thinks of her as his wife, and then his son – in danger, even for a good cause, seems impossible even as a theoretical.

Alex looks at Bobby when Johnny asks the question, though, because Alex doesn't now and will never believe that she handed their son the curiosity gene. She thinks and will always think that it's a Goren trait, and reminds him of this sometimes. As of right now, she’s spooning rice onto her plate and waiting for Bobby to answer the question. 

He looks up from where he’s been moving his green beans around on the plate. (He’ll never like green beans.) “Why?” he repeats.

“Why did they do that?” Johnny has been pushing his rice and beans around in circles and has half of his chicken left, which is rare. Usually, when he comes home for dinner and Alex actually puts in the effort to make something (with Bobby’s blundering help – in this case, he chopped lettuce for the salad), Johnny practically licks the plates clean. He meets Bobby’s eyes and there’s deep concern in them, like he’s missing a vital piece of information that he needs. “They wanted a kid and they got one, but then they… Treated him like that. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Not everything makes sense,” Alex points out. 

“I – some people don’t understand what they’re doing when they do it,” Bobby says almost at the same time, and she raises her eyes to him. “There’s a – a very real human tendency to not think about what you’re doing until there are…repercussions. You think through most of your actions, but not everyone does. Some people wait until it’s too late to change what they’re doing.”

“But they had to know it was messed up,” Johnny argues, gesturing with his fork because his hands just won’t do. “There’s no way they could have done it and thought it was normal. I mean, they weren’t stupid people.”

“We don’t know that they weren’t sick,” Bobby replies, “and – ”

“He was a normal kid until they did this,” Johnny presses, almost like Bobby hasn’t said anything. “He probably told them to stop at the beginning, before they really screwed up his head. So why didn’t they listen? Being sick or having mental problems or whatever doesn’t mean you can just do things like that. I mean, the disabled kid in my seventh grade class stopped when you told him you didn’t like what he was doing, so why didn’t these people? It’s like…. It’s an excuse.”

“If you’re able to live with that, then you have to live with the – the realization that some things never have explanations. You have to be willing to live in a gray version of the world, where sometimes people aren’t just good or just bad and they do things for a thousand reasons and not all of them make sense to reasonable people. You have to be willing to look at everyone and wonder if they’re capable of those things. Not just some people. Everyone.”

Bobby’s words land heavily on and around the table, and for a long moment, Johnny’s quiet, not playing with his food or poking the ice in his glass of water, but watching him. He may be an Eames, and have Eames traits and an Eames’s practicality, but he tips his head a few degrees and Bobby sees himself reflected: younger, with lighter hair, and an understanding of the world that’s much softer, much more naïve.

He wants Johnny to hold onto that for as long as he can. He wants him to believe in people, in their goodness, until he’s finally and irrevocably proven otherwise.

Maybe this is the first step in that direction. 

“I can maybe live with it,” he answers, and goes back to his dinner.

Alex looks at Bobby for a moment, her eyebrows raised, and he shrugs. 

The rest of the meal is spent talking about Johnny’s friends at school, his plans on his first real city weekend (the freshmen start their city weekends last, because it’s a merit-based reward and they need time to settle into school before their grades determine their recreation), and the TV show he wants to watch after they’re finished. He blasts the volume in the living room and Bobby listens to it echo through the house when he’s in the kitchen, helping Alex scrape the plates into the garbage in the rhythm they developed years ago.

“What I don’t understand,” Alex says after several minutes of listening to near-innuendo float in from the prime-time show, “is why Peter didn’t fight back sooner. The one time my mother had enough to drink that she hit me, I hit her back. My father had to drag us apart by the end of it, and I was eleven.” 

Bobby turns and grins at her. “You fought back?” he asks, half-shocked.

She catches his grin and sends him a dark look. “She passed on her fighting Irish spirit to all her girls.”

“I can’t imagine your sister hitting her, no matter how inebriated your mother might have been.”

“Ashley never did, but Carrie? Lord, I’m surprised my mother let her survive her teenage years in one piece.” She places a couple plates in the dishwasher and then looks at Bobby again. “He must have really loved his foster parents, to not fight back until the end.”

“Loved or lived in fear,” Bobby replies, and comes around to put a plate in the sink. He stands close enough to Alex that she can lean back and put her weight against him and she does. Bobby finds a place for his arms around her and it’s amazing how small she can feel given her presence in any room. She’s three women until she’s against him, and then, she’s only one again. “But I think… I think that for a boy like him, he had no choice but to love his parents in whatever form they came in. It’s hard not to, when they’re all you have in your world. Even if they’re imperfect.”

“Your parents didn’t…” It’s amazing that even after everything, Alex can’t say it.

He puts his nose against her hair. “They didn’t have to for me to understand,” he murmurs, just loud enough for her to hear. “Sometimes, I felt it all the same.

He’s not sure how much time has passed when they finally move apart, Alex patting his arm as a sign that he can let go, and Bobby moves away, picking up the last of the dinner trash and generally straightening their kitchen – or rather, what of their kitchen is not still in boxes. The dishwasher hisses and he’s not sure if it’s accidental or on purpose that they wander into the living room together. 

Johnny’s sprawled out on the floor with two couch pillows propping him up in the strangest ways. He’s lost his socks and tossed his sweater and button-down on a chair so it’s dark pants and an undershirt against the cream pillows and the thick, almost-tan carpet. Everything washes together for Bobby except Johnny, and it isn’t until a couple minutes have passed that he looks up and blinks. “Hey, you guys wanna watch something?”

“What are you watching?” Bobby asks. 

“It’s that new game show,” Alex informs him, and moves across to the couch. “It’s like primetime Jeopardy.”

“Some of the questions are kind of dirty,” and Johnny grins with all the incorrigibility of a fourteen-year-old boy. Because, and Bobby has to remind himself of this, Johnny is a fourteen-year-old boy, and even if he asks questions that are better suited for a young adult, he still likes jokes about farting and women with low-cut shirts.

Like the female contestant on the screen who is bouncing around. Johnny’s eyes focus lower than her grin. Bobby can’t help but smile. 

“Mind if we ruin it for you?” he asks as he settles down on the couch with Alex.

“You’re going to answer all the questions,” he accuses.

“I’ll give you a three second head-start.”

“Mom?”

“I’ll hurt him if he doesn’t,” Alex promises, hand to heart. “You might actually beat him this time.”

“Yeah, _right_ ,” scoffs Johnny, but then he’s flopping back to watch some more, lanky teen form spread across the floor like the entire house was built for him to do so.

Bobby doesn’t watch the show, but he does watch Johnny. He watches him smile, and laugh, and even watches him as he ogles the woman in the low-cut shirt for no other reason than he’s something precious. The Huntingtons, he realizes, weren’t necessarily bad people or good people; they were people who simply wanted something so badly that they didn’t know how to adjust for fate moving against their plans. They couldn’t look at a ten-year-old and see a ten-year-old not because they were some rare breed of dark beasts, the devils of New York City, but because they were a little uncertain, a little scared, and a little lost in their own heads. They never learned to look at their son – maybe not exactly the son they imagined, maybe not exactly the child of their dreams, but their child nonetheless – and see him for what he was: their son.

He can’t necessarily forgive that, but he can try to understand that.

“Have you ever stopped to think,” he asks Alex quietly, at a pitch that Johnny can’t hear over the sound of the television, “that maybe, if we hadn’t – if our lives hadn’t turned out the way they did, we could both be more like the Huntingtons than we are like…us?”

Alex raises her head and seems to consider the question for a moment. The moment passes, he can see it in her eyes, but she stays quiet a few seconds longer anyway, the time it takes to lean against him and tangle fingers with his like they’re teenagers – something they’ve never been together – on their first date.

“I think,” she replies, “that we’re both just reasonable enough to always find what we’re looking for.”

She says it with so much conviction that Bobby believes it and, more importantly, knows he’ll _always_ believe it. 

He kisses her on the head and settles in.


End file.
